


Fallow

by TychoBrandt



Category: Dungeon Siege
Genre: And heroes become something else, And the kingdom is quiet, Gen, Swords become plowshares, When the war ends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 10:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15070850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TychoBrandt/pseuds/TychoBrandt
Summary: You and your band of heroes have saved the kingdom.The kingdom does not need you any longer.You can go home now.





	1. Funerary

Hail, Lord Scarre of Ehb. 

Champion of the Knightly Order of Stars. Agent of the Azunite Defenders. Evocatus of the 10th Legion.

Bane of beasts. Bane of brigands. 

Bane of all living things.

Farmer Scarre is dead.

Long live Lord Scarre.

\---

The pyres are stacked high with the dead, high beyond balance. Absurd, but the flames consume all the same. Three pyres--for the knighthood, the vassals, the enemy. There would be more than ten pyres, had the nobles had their way, but the nobles that would have objected were, too, stacked upon the pyres.

So there it was. King Konreid, may he live forever, our King--and Lord Bolingar--just Sir Bolingar, now--lit each pyre, his face solemn. Family, friends, allies, rivals--consigned to the flame, to smoke, to ash.

Scarre watched each pyre burn, and for every pyre there was a great sigh.

Good. Let it burn. Let it all burn away.

\---

Ulora is perched on the edge of his bed.

Were this the tale of a troubador, one would expect him to draw a dagger from beneath his pillow, or have some witticism drawn and aimed. But neither comes; he simply lies there, eyes closed, breathing slowly, hoping she leaves.

"You were talking in your sleep, again."

Scarre sighs. He props himself onto his side with an elbow, blinking tiredly. She coalesces into detail--so different, now. Her face is no longer gaunt and sunburnt, her hair no longer dagger-hacked short, no circles of bruised flesh underneath the eyes. She is so pale, now, and her freckles stand out like stars in darkness. "You were watching me sleep?"

"I heard you from the corridor."

"Did I leave the door open?"

"No."

It was a thick, blackwood door. Ironbound.

"I... see."

Scarre rolls over, looks at the wall. His eyes run down the tapestries, the stonework. 

"Scarre--"

"No."

"Perhaps it is time you went home."

"I told you, Ulora."

She makes a noise of irritation. Scarre tenses. "And how long are you going to subject yourself to this?"

"We will see."

"How long are you going to subject _me_ to this?"

A pause. Scarre slowly twists his head, looks at her over his shoulder. 

Her eyes are the same. Reading everything--ancient texts, people, the world. 

Him, like he is bare and open before her like a scattering of oracle bones over embers.

"I... sorry."

She sighs, squeezes her eyes shut. She clasps his hand tightly. "I know. I know you are."

\---

The dreams came as soon as the pyres went cold.

And he would awaken, confused, muttering.

"Norick? Edgaar? Where--where in the hells are you?"

And there would be Ulora, holding him by the shoulders, speaking slowly, carefully--you are in Castle Ehb, yes, the castle, Norick is dead, no one has seen Edgaar, but the battle is over. 

Scarre would just look past her. Ulora is used to being afraid--of pain, of death, of nights lost in forests or caverns--but Scarre had always been there, murmuring consolation, ready with a quip, wry and unamused by life and death alike.

But now she sees Scarre, afraid, truly afraid--and she wonders if she had ever truly known him. 

"Look at me," she would say. "Remember me? Say my name."

He would swallow, work his throat. "Ulora."

"And how did we meet?"

"The--the old--the--the crypt. First. In the beginning."

He was covered in blood and dirt and dust, bound up in scavenged armor. Entrails encrusted his mace. He looked like any other monster. A wild ghost of rust. "And you saved me."

Scarre would just nod and stare, and Ulora could see it there, in his eyes, that he was still there, still back there, still lost in the Crypt of the Sacred Blood.

\---

Who was it, then? Who noticed first?

Phaedriel, perhaps. Before she died. Before they buried her outside Fortress Kroth, scattered the red dirt over her face.

She was the one who noticied the way Scarre slept--or did not sleep. It mattered not who had 'first watch--' for Scarre would lie awake in his bedroll regardless, listening, waiting.

"You do not sleep like a soldier," she said one morning, stoking the embers of their concealed campfire.

She was right. A soldier could learn to sleep anywhere, anytime. A soldier understood that value of rest, the toll of exhaustion.

Scarre did neither. He was still just a farmer, sitting up at night waiting for wolves and foxes, circles under his eyes growing ever darker.

\---

He cannot hide in his chambers for Ulora or Gyorn will find him. Amongst the flowers and vines and trees of the garden, then, shall he conceal himself.

A sorry attempt.

"Ah, Sir Scarre--a word, if I may?"

He emerges out of the hedge like a damned spirit of the forest. Scarre has no means of escape, so he stands there, arms at his sides, fingers twitching.

Lord Bolingar is so polite that Scarre does not know how to speak with him, at times.

Even in pitched combat, there would be "please" and "thank you" and all manner of pleasantries echoing from within his helm. And the blood--on his gauntlets, his sabatons--he was always apologizing for the blood, even upon the damned field of battle.

"Bolingar, ever always, you have my ear."

"I would rather thou keep it, sir!" He chuckles. Scarre suppresses a grimace. Sir. Sir. _Sir._

They walk the paths of the garden, saying nothing, at first. 

"Thy condition," Bolingar begins.

"What condition?" Too quick.

"Sorrow," he says, thumbing at his moustache. "Thou studied the stories of the Legionnaires and their valor, yes. Gyorn spoke of the shelf of books in your house. But stories are not history." He paused. "Stories, perhaps for our own health, are not truth."

Scarre is silent. 

"There are those who weep after a skirmish, sir. The tears come unbidden--like any other rain. Any veteran man-at-arms knows of this."

Scarre is silent.

"And there are those who dream of that very skirmish--of triumph, of defeat, of things that never were. Night after night, awakening awash in sweat. Fall into fits, or start at the sounds of steel, or shod hooves."

Scarre is silent.

"I... I relate this to thee because your journey here was a remarkable one. Thou warred, yes--with grace--but thou didst not learn the ways of the warrior."

"No?" Scarre stops walking, stares incredulously at Bolingar. "Of course I learned. I had to learn. You were not there, I fought--I fought and killed like the rest."

"There is yet more to it than thou know," he replied somberly. "Thou were not a squire, as I was. Thou didst not know--"

"A hundred men slain," Scarre spat, "a generation of widows and orphans--and I have more to learn? Please." 

Bolingar frowns, seats himself upon a carved stone bench near a fountain. He watches the fish play within.

Like this, unadorned by his great ambroly--he just looks like a man. Not Lord Bolingar, the spirit of war itself, wielding a greatsword in a single hand. Cleanly lopping limbs as common men trim and tend to the branches of orchards.

Scarre sits down, too.

"Lady Ulora--"

"I told her not to say anything."

"Sir Scarre," Bolingar interjects, voice firmer now. "All who have eyes see your disposition for what it is, and grow fearful for thee. For they love thee, and as thou art my brother-in-arms, my love for thee is no less great." He sighs. "This... self-slaughter from within cannot be faced alone."

\---

Rusk slaps the third decanter of wine from the table.

It shatters. Scarre leaps up, back arched, hisses at the noise.

"I--was--drinking--that."

"Aye. _Was,_ " Rusk says smugly. He spits into the fire.

Something changes. Rusk sees it--the sudden emptiness in the eyes, the relaxation of the face, the set of the jaw. Scarre comes at him, fists first.

Scarre is swift and strong, yes. But Rusk has been drunk longer than Scarre has had a beard. He parries Scarre's blows with ease, watching the man stumble and swear.

"There! There it is!" he declares. "The warrior, all a-roused, all a-sortied! Where has he been hiding all this time, hm? Riddle me that!"

"Rusk, you hold bloody still," Scarre growls.

"Oh, I am still--it is you who bobs and weaves."

Scarre's left hand trembles, and he splays it wide. Beneath the surface, the veins darken, pulsate. Skin grows ashen, pulls too tight. 

The fire in the hearth flares, roars.

Blood drips from Scarre's fingernails, sizzles upon the stones.

And Rusk punches him in the face.

Scarre lays there on the floor, blinking at dancing lights, looking up at the rafters.

"Knew ye had it in ya," he says, rubbing his knuckles. "Now, up, up! Konreid wants to see ya."

\---

Penitence.

Lock a soul in hell for centuries--perhaps they will confess their sins.

Or, perhaps, they will temper and harden.

Scarre did not blame Gom. What was he, if not a chief tending to the survival of his tribe? 

Gom had noticed that, of course. The doubt. When their met eyes across the battlefield--glowing red and blank bloodshot--he saw Scarre for what he was.

Just a pawn, cutting a straight and bloody path across the board.

Perhaps he had known that he and his people were doomed. The longer they waited, the stronger Ehb would become. And rather than prostrate themselves before Konreid, or remain in that tortuous hole any longer, they decided to lash out--one last snarl, one last gnash of the teeth.

Those teeth sank deep, at least.

\---

There's a saying--

It's an old one, carried westward by Legionnaires. 

Ulfgrim told it to Scarre one particularly miserable night, when the hot winds of the desert mesa lashed them with sand. Back before he died.

"When are you an axe, every problem is a tree."


	2. Heart Stopper

Scarre waits outside the barbican of Castle Ehb. He does not pace; he sits still in the dewed grass, blades bending between his trailing fingers. He has been waiting there for some time, and it is only after a silent hour he realizes that he has been waiting alone. 

Of the few storied Legionnaires that survived the siege of Castle Ehb, fewer still particularly like Scarre. At first, when he had crawled out of the Vault, coughing up smoke and blood. the skin singed from his limbs, hairless like a newborn, they had expected a hero worth following. But from Scarre there were no grand speeches, no grand gestures, no grand charisma. He kept his head down as he walked, did not return the salutes of the soldiers, he received his meals alone, he drank alone.

Instead, of all people, Zedaren appeared to wait with him. Yes, that Zed. Albeit with a tome 'borrowed' from the library between his hands and a pipe clenched between his teeth, of course, but he was there all the same. 

Being Zed, as one understands, he bores easily, not unlike a child. Scarre watches as he turns pages with one hand, eyes darting back and forth. He twists the element of air with the other hand, conjuring strange designs in his pipesmoke.

Some time later he shoves a heel of bread into Scarre's face, breaking his trance. After regarding the bread for a moment, then regarding Zed with equal perplexion, Scarre takes it into his hands. It tastes like nothing, as all things have these past days, but it makes his body heavy enough to not drift away.

"This will make an interesting footnote," Zed mutters into the morning mist. "The old ban on Travelers within the walls of Ehb lifted due to the political manuevering of a farmer. A farmer." He glances over at Scarre, eyebrow cocked. "Little chance to be the most repeated of your accomplishments, is it?"

Scarre looks into the distance. The mist is unmoving. He tries to imagine things in the mist but cannot. "I suppose not."

Zed does not wait for him to say more--he returns to reading. Zed knows how Scarre is, and Scarre appreciates him for it, and Zed knows he is appreciated and that is the nature of their bond.

They come, eventually, emerging out of the fog like a dream soon to be forgotten. The caravan, led by the woman herself.

She moves. Sikra dashes forward and pulls Scarre into a tight hug. He cannot breathe but he accepts that.

They do not say anything. There is nothing to say. They just rock back and forth, for a moment, feel each others' life.

"I missed you," she murmurs into his ear.

"And I missed you," he says, breathless, without missing a beat. 

He knew, deep in his heart, that she would convince the Travelers into the safety of the walls of Ehb. But he worried. That is what kept him alive this past year--worry, fear, hatred, rage, and little else. Now that all of those things have left him--

She pulls back, holding him by the shoulders, looking at him. "How awful you look," she says, kissing him on both cheeks in the way of Travelers. She scowls, wrinkling her nose. "And how awful you smell!"

Zed clears his throat. "Shall I give you two some privacy, or should I be taking notes?"

"Oh, fuck thee rightly off, Zed," Sikra barks.

Zed throws back his head and laughs, and Sikra laughs too. Scarre almost smiles.

\---

Naidi shouts, "There it is! Look, look now! Scarre!"

Scarre looks. The target of straw-bale has all ten arrows stuck into its sorry body, as it were some massive pin-cushion.

"There it is--you did it," he offers.

Naidi grins wide. Too many teeth for a woman her size. "And they said I would never loose an arrow again." She lifts her left arm in triumph. Her expression falls, as does her arm. "I thought Phaedriel was a fool, as ya'know, for practicing with both hands--like a... a circus performer. And I thought I was more the fool for imitating her. But... looks like she was right, after all."

"... Yes," Scarre says, looking down at his own left hand. 

Compared to what she had once been capable of, Naidi's current archery skills are dismal. She has better form and accuracy than your average bowman, yes, but she tires faster--both from using her weak-side and from her weakened right side.

She knows what he is thinking. "I can still fight, Scarre," she says quietly, intently, stepping up to look him in the face, to dare him to say otherwise.

She said those exact words a year before. She sounds as sure now as she did then. "I know," he says, and she smiles. 

He does not tell her, that in truth, he never wants to fight again.

\---

Gyorn is blind in one eye, now. His right. His good eye. What was once his good eye.

But, as he says over and over again: "a farmer does not need eyes, only joints to feel the rain."

Scarre can hardly bear to look at him.

\---

In those rare moments when Scarre sleeps as ordinary people do--during the night, in a bed--sometimes Ulora joins him.

She crawls into bed next to him, leaning into his hunched back, her breath on his scarred neck. This is how they slept, that first night after the Crypt of Sacred Blood. Scarre, wild-eyed and snarling, teeth gnashing, more animal than man, had wanted to press on in that darkening gloom, but Ulora would have none of it. So they found a knot of trees and bundled themselves together against the cold and waited for the morn.

In the tunnels of the Delve, or along the icy crags outside Glacern, or anywhere else where the cold may have found them, they found themselves in the same arrangement. Gyorn raised his eyebrows, Naidi found it hilariously innocent, and at one point Rusk took Scarre aside and instructed him in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to become a man--but Scarre nor Ulora particularly cared.

"Scarre," she whispers into the darkness.

Nothing.

"Can you..." She pauses, takes a breath. "Can you... hold me?"

His breathing does not change. Ulora nearly closes her eyes again before she feels him sigh, shift, roll over--and the sure brace of his arms. 

He is softer, fattened by the larder of the castle. The calluses faded, the raised and unhealed wounds sink back into skin, he is not covered in rashes where his aketon and armor ill-fit. 

She rests her head upon his chest, listens to his heart beat slowly. 

While so much of him may become recognizable, she knows that sound.


End file.
